


Something Beautiful

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Bright Young Things, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale: Guardian Angel of the Gays, Gen, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), and a very little bit of Miles & Crowley interacting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 02:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19039222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: By request-ish: a fic in which Miles and Aziraphale have tea together.And maybe in which Aziraphale kind of immediately adopts him in spite of himself.Also, Crowley's around.





	Something Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Français available: [Something Beautiful - Traduction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19710760) by [Rikka_kun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikka_kun/pseuds/Rikka_kun)



> You could take Crowley and Aziraphale as pre-relationship in this but the intimacy between them isn't necessarily romantic. I mean Aziraphale having feelings is hinted at but even then it can just be a desire for platonic intimacy, just so no one comes looking for the A/C content only to be disappointed-- it's more about Aziraphale connecting with Miles!

    “There, there…” Aziraphale tuts softly, pulling out his handkerchief and dabbing at the boy’s face. A bit of runny mascara comes away on his hanky, but such is the price to pay… “The kettle’s on right now, dear child, and I’m sure I can scare up something to eat, have you eaten?”

 

    He shakes his head, sniffling. “No, I didn’t… I haven’t thought about that. I-- I haven’t… I didn’t think…”

 

    “That’s all right, I’ll find us something. Now, tell me again, my dear, what’s got you in such a state, this time of night?”

 

    “It was a police raid.” He says miserably, and drags the back of his hand across his face, smearing more mascara around.

 

    Aziraphale miracles it away quietly before he notices it-- it just seems neater than risking getting makeup all over everything.

 

    “Oh, dear, dear… Just up the street, was it? Well, a very good thing you came my way, you poor lamb.” He nods. Everyone got away, of course-- Or, they will. The wagon will stall and the door will swing open, and the cuffs will come undone, and the fog will be suddenly thick on the ground. He’s just glad he heard about it. At his own club, no raids ever happen at all, but he can’t keep up with every little place to come and go, or gain new sorts of clientele, to bless all of them.

 

    “Sorry-- sorry, I ran into your, erm… shop, you must have been quite busy to be here so late and I’ve made a mess of your evening.” The boy forces a smile, though he’s still sniffling.

 

    “Not at all. No, not at all, you mustn’t apologize for needing help. My door is always open to those in need. After all… we’ve got to stick together, haven’t we?”

 

    This time, his smile is a little more real. “We have, yes. Yes. Er-- sorry, Miles. Erm, Maitland.” He extends a hand. His nails are painted, orange-red with bare half-moons.

 

    “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Ezra Fell.”

 

    “Ah. Fell, like the sign on the shop.” Miles brightens as Aziraphale takes his hand. “Has it been in your family very long?”

 

    “Oh, a couple hundred years, more or less. The property has been, at any rate. And the shop in business for a little less than that. It’s never passed into unfamiliar hands. Ah-- there’s the kettle, back in a tic.”

 

    He gets the tea tray, and does manage some sandwiches and biscuits. Miles seems much less distressed when he returns to him. Not like the quivering mess he’d been when Aziraphale, sensing some trouble, had opened his door only for a strange and flamboyantly dressed young man to all but fall into his arms.

 

    “Here-- sugar? Cream?”

 

    “Oh-- thank you.” He nods. He accepts a cup, and seems very happy to have a bit of food pushed on him. “I just-- oh, I barely got to dance at all, and I barely had a drink, and I lost my compact… which is just as well, I’d not have liked to be caught with it! I’d not have liked to be caught at all… although, do you know, I thought I would be rattled for days and I didn’t think I should be able to eat a thing without being sick, but now, I really do feel much better.”

 

    “I am glad. Tell me, Miles, what sort of places do you normally go?”

 

    “Oh, well-- parties, mostly!” Miles brightens further.

 

    He spends the next hour and a half talking about his friends, and the parties they go to, and he doesn’t notice that the pot of tea holds rather more than it ought to be able to. Aziraphale keeps thinking he ought to get _tired_ at some point, and that then he might suggest he take the guest room-- not that he has a guest room, but he has a bedroom he doesn’t sleep in, and Miles wouldn’t know it wasn’t a guest room-- but he doesn’t flag at all. He nibbles at his food and drinks his tea and chatters away, growing more and more comfortable, but no more ready to sleep, and Aziraphale just prompts him to go on talking as much as he likes.

 

    He gets the feeling people don’t listen to the poor thing enough. He starts out trying to be very witty about everything, but the more Aziraphale says ‘tell me more’, the less he jokes and the more he just _talks_.

 

    “I don’t know why I said that.” He laughs, after a story about his friend Agatha-- not a particularly riveting story, not a story about some misadventure, only about how they met and how much they like each other, really, and what they’re _like_ when they aren’t like the versions of themselves that people see.

 

    “Because I asked to hear more about her.”

 

    “Yes, but-- but it must have been dashed boring for you, in the end.”

 

    “Not at all. I think it’s lovely you have a friend you care about so much.”

 

    “Have I just been rambling at you all this time? However much time all this has been?”

 

    “Of course not.” Aziraphale promises.

 

    There is a very quiet _snort_ from one of his bookshelves, and Miles startles, pulling his feet up onto the sofa.

 

    “There’s a snake in your shop!” He points, and Aziraphale turns, sighing.

 

    “Yes, there often is.” He nods. “I’ll remove him, shall I? Don’t worry, he won’t bite.”

 

    Miles watches, wide-eyed, as Aziraphale goes and holds out an arm for Crowley to coil around. He rests his chin flat against Aziraphale’s forearm, giving him an unusually unreadable look-- normally he has no trouble at all understanding what Crowley’s looks mean-- then again, best he not speak in front of a human guest, in this shape.

 

    Rather than putting him out on the street, Aziraphale carries him up to the flat above, and installs him in an armchair with a blanket and a glass of wine, and a rather gentle admonishment to _behave_.

 

    “I’ll behave.” Crowley promises, though his tone is not very reassuring. He sips at his wine, and huddles in his blanket.

 

    Aziraphale ignores the odd impulse to pet at him-- it’s inappropriate enough when he’s a smallish snake, and even moreso when he’s man-shaped. Aziraphale is certain that the first time he felt that way, it was because Crowley looked so perfectly snakelike, and Aziraphale _likes_ snakes. Likes petting them, the cool, smooth texture. Even a potentially aggressive animal, they tend to react to his angelic aura with docility. The fact that since then, he’s occasionally thought he might well pat Crowley’s head when he looks human is…

 

    Well, best not to think about it. He doubts Crowley would appreciate being treated like a household pet.

 

    Miles is somewhat relaxed once more, when he returns downstairs, pouring him another cup of tea and passing him another biscuit, both of which were impossible. Neither of which he questions.

 

    “Do you keep that animal, Mister Fell?” He asks, with bright interest. Now that _that animal_ is well out of striking distance, he seems much more interested.

 

    “Er… well. He comes and goes. But he’s not venomous and he likes the warmth of being indoors, and he doesn’t harm anything.”

 

    “Because it’s so _unusual_ , keeping a snake! I can imagine what people would say at parties, if you walked around the whole evening with a snake on your person! You would be the most interesting man there.”

 

    “I can only imagine the trouble he could get me in.” Aziraphale laughs.

 

    “Do you feed him, to get him to keep coming around here, and not other places? How does one _lure_ a serpent into a domestic arrangement?”

 

    “I don’t really need to feed him.” He shakes his head. He does, of course, from time to time For business lunches, he takes his turns paying the cheque. But often Crowley does the feeding between them, just because. He drags Aziraphale to restaurants, or shows up with food. “I think he’s happier being free to do as he pleases than he would be being _kept_ \-- though I think it’s just a question of having a warm place to sleep and not running him out.”

 

    And, of course, providing wine, in Crowley’s case. But that would be a weird thing to say about snakes… As for who had lured whom into an Arrangement, that’s another thing he doesn’t suppose bears thinking on tonight, when he has a guest to attend to. He could lose himself in memory for ages, given the length of his memory. Their Arrangement was coming up on its ninth century, but it had been a long time coming when they’d made it, after all. They both shied away from bringing it up a good while before one of them let the idea spill.

 

    “That’s for the best I suppose. They eat pests, don’t they? Moles and things? So you’d have to have a steady supply of moles.” Miles laughs. “I’ve never seen one like that. He was quite shiny. If I were a snake, of course, I should want to be quite shiny, myself. Not that I think one needs to be a snake to wish to shine. But it’s much easier for people! Why, if you were a snake, you’d have to settle for being as you were born.”

 

    He makes it sound very matter-of-fact, and so Aziraphale nods encouragingly, though he’d let himself get distracted and now he’s a bit uncertain he’s following.

 

    “If you were some common grass snake, you’d never get to be truly _iridescent_ , I mean.” Miles carries on, and so Aziraphale carries on nodding. “You’d have to be sort of… dull. And so no one would ever want to keep you in a shop or feed you or take you to parties. Whereas if you’re a person, and you’re born small and dull, you can dress yourself up and make yourself over, and people will want to do all of those things. You can powder your nose and paint your lips and _drown_ yourself in jewels, and say clever things, and swan about in silk, and people will think you’re very interesting.”

 

    His smile goes brittle around the edges, as he realizes he may have revealed too much, but at this, Aziraphale nods with a bit more confidence.

 

    “It may surprise you to know, young man, but I have swanned about, dressed in silk, my face powdered.”

 

    “Did you?” And the brittleness flakes away, glee replacing it. Miles leans forward, clapping his hands over his mouth and wriggling in his seat in excitement. “When you were young?”

 

    “Oh, only a couple hundred years ago.” He says, with the sort of lightness that implies he’s joking. That and the absurdity of the very true statement.

 

    “Mister Fell!” Miles slaps gently at his arm. “I certainly didn’t mean to imply you seem _old_ , really!”

 

    “I am old, and not at all ashamed of it. It’s not a terrible thing to be.”

 

    The brittleness creeps back in, and Miles seems to regard himself with a faint horror as more words tumble out of him.

 

    “I can’t imagine ever being old.” He admits. “I won’t ever be. I suppose you want to tell me it’s better than the alternative, but what is there? What’s for you if you can’t be young and beautiful? You’re a terribly interesting man, Mister Fell, aren’t you? I mean-- do you read all these books? And have deep things to talk about to people? And you’ve got a snake you let live in your home and if you dressed up and took it to parties everyone would want to talk to you. But you sit here at home. You used to dress up and go out and have fun and now you just sit at home, and isn’t it depressing? Isn’t it lonely? Don’t you hate it?”

 

    His voice breaks, and he turns away, and presses a hand over his mouth again as his shoulders begin to tremble.

 

    “I’m not at all lonely tonight, am I?” Aziraphale says, and he gently presses one shaky shoulder. “I do like to sit home with my books. And I wouldn’t dress up the way I did when I was younger and expect not to be gawked at and thought a fool, for some fashions are best left to the young and beautiful… and I am not interested in wearing a small creature to a party just to be looked at. I’ve been looked at in my time, my dear, with awe and fascination and even with desire… and sometimes I enjoyed it, and other times I was terribly self-conscious about it… I don’t _want_ all of those things now. But I do go out some nights. I go to a quiet place that’s never raided, and I do talk with people about books, and I have a tipple, and sometimes if an old friend elects to join me, I confess I have quite a bit more than that.”

 

    “Do you?” Miles looks up at him, and he purses his lips and seems to reserve some judgment.

 

    “I do.”

 

    “With old friends you’ve had forever?”

 

    “With one I have. You won’t go out as often, when you’re older, but when you do go out, you’ll enjoy it. And you’ll treasure the people who remain close to you. And you’ll gain perspective and wisdom.”

 

    “Oh, perspective.” He flaps a hand derisively. “I’ve loads of perspective as it is, and I don’t like it at all, you know. Maybe you think I’m silly, but I have got perspective. I see things. I see what the world’s like for us.”

 

    “Ah. That.” Aziraphale nods. “Well… therein lies the best part of age.”

 

    “Yes, I suppose going out less means I’m less likely to find myself in the _hoosegow_.”

 

    “I _mean_ , young man, when you are not so young… you will see lovely young boys full of promise-- full of _immeasurable_ promise. Oh, but it will break your heart to see how bright they are! They may have tender souls or rough edges, or both. They do so often have both. Hard shells and masks and sad, lonely centers, because they can’t see a future for themselves. With all their gifts, they can’t… But you shall. When you are not so young, you shall meet boys who weep for a life they think they’ll never have, and you shall take their hands, and you shall say ‘look at me, I have been on this earth so much longer than I ever thought I would be, and every day, I see something beautiful in it. And if I do not see something beautiful, then I make something beautiful, I do something beautiful, I _am_ something beautiful. I have wept and suffered and feared, and weathered heartbreak, and now look at me. I am so like you, my beautiful child, and I am old, and I am glad of it’. You shall say that, and you shall think of your home and your friends, and the things which bring you joy and pleasure, and the love you have found. And you shall be as lovely as you are today. You shall be a promise of a brighter future.”

 

    He dabs at Miles’ face again with his handkerchief, and then he finds another corner and dabs at his own.

 

    “Immeasurable promise?” Miles asks, with roughened voice.

 

    “Oh, yes. _Immeasurable_. All the angels in Heaven couldn’t calculate for certain all the things you might do, and what you might make of yourself.”

 

    “I thought angels were supposed to know everything.” He laughs-- though it’s a bit watery.

 

    “Oh, no, my dear. Not everything. Enough, one hopes, but not everything. Come now, it’s very late, and I don’t think the streets are at _all_ safe. I’ve a spare room and in the morning I’ll see you get a cab if you need one. Though… not before another cup of tea and some toast, at least. Goodness, I wouldn’t let anyone go without that.”

 

    “I’ve never had a man try to put me in his _spare_ room.” Miles says, with the tone of one testing the waters. It is not flirtation, precisely, nor confession.

 

    “A first time for everything.” Aziraphale smiles, and offers him a hand up. “I’ll clear up this mess in the morning.”

 

    “Do you think a snake would eat sandwich crumbs, or only moles and toads?” Miles laughs.

 

    “I shudder to think about the moles and toads, of which I am fresh out. If I thought he wanted sandwiches, I expect I would make them...”

 

    “You’re a very kind soul.”

 

    “Sweet of you to say.” He smiles.

 

    Upstairs, in his flat, Crowley is curled in the armchair-- in his preferred shape, with his wine glass empty.

 

    “Oh!” Miles exclaims, noticing the man within the nest of blankets and cushions he’s amassed for himself since Aziraphale had left him with just the one. “Er, hullo.”

 

    “Hullo.” Crowley nods.

 

    “Dear, this is Miles Maitland, Miles, may I present Anthony Crowley. Miles is staying tonight, there’s been an awful business up the road, so do--”

 

    “Do behave. I did promise I would when you came up before.”

 

    “Did he show you his big snake?” Miles grins rather wickedly, a thing Crowley clearly approves of.

 

    “Impressive, was it?” He asks, leaning forward.

 

    “I wouldn’t say ‘big’.” Aziraphale sniffs, as the two of them dissolve into mirth.

 

    “Big enough, I thought.” Crowley manages.

 

    “Rather smallish.”

 

    “Surely not!”

 

    “Some might use the word ‘cute’ before ‘impressive’.”

 

    Miles collapses against the arm of the chair laughing, leaning on Crowley now as if he were an old friend. The two of them nudge at each other, and crack up all over again after an exchanged look.

 

    “ _Really_.” Aziraphale gives Crowley a disapproving frown.

 

    “Angel, we haven’t said a _word_.”

 

    “You needn’t play coy about the snake, you know, it is rather your… That is…” Aziraphale struggles with a way of finishing his sentence without implying either an act of sexual congress or of shapeshifting. “I mean to say!”

 

    “I told him he ought to take it around to parties.” Miles giggles, pushing himself back upright. “I was at a party once where someone had a _tortoise_ on a leash, but no one’s ever walked about with a real live snake, and certainly not one so fashionable as the one I saw downstairs.”

 

    “Yes, angel, take your little friend to more parties, why don’t you? Let him drink from your champagne glass.”

 

    “I don’t know as there’s any way to stop him.” He sighs.

 

    “Feed him little… blini with caviar.” Crowley grins. “Whatever else people serve at parties. All those small bites that waiters carry about while everyone mingles and gets drunk.”

 

    “Oh, that’s no good.” Miles giggles even harder. “He’ll only want to eat moles and toads!”

 

    “I do not go to the sorts of parties you seem to be imagining, my dear boy, and if I did…” Aziraphale begins.

 

    “Definitely don’t feed him any moles and toads at a party. But to your club. You might as well.”

 

    “... Might I?”

 

    He shrugs.

 

    “Take a snake to my social club.” Aziraphale continues.

 

    “Yes, if you like.”

 

    “Just as a conversation starter?”

 

    “I bet a snake _would_ eat caviar, if it was offered him. They eat eggs, some snakes do. And fish. And caviar is just fish eggs, so it stands to reason.”

 

    “Well, I would eat caviar if it was offered me.” Miles says. “So I’ll hardly argue the point with you, except I’m not sure about the blini. But if you could do, I think everyone would want to watch-- through their fingers, perhaps, some of them, but it’s dashed impressive, isn’t it? I think it would be. Tortoises don’t do that, they eat a bit of salad and then do a rock impression all evening. It’s very novel at first but it doesn’t hold much attention.”

 

    “The spare room’s through there, m’dear. And the bath is just here.” Aziraphale says, and there is nothing _pointed_ in his tone, precisely, but it is somehow very compelling. “Go on and wash your face if it makes you feel better, and borrow a bit of mouthwash.”

 

    “Spare room?” Crowley raises an eyebrow.

 

    “It’s spare to me.” He shrugs. Though… while Miles is making use of the bath to clean up a bit and rinse his mouth-- with Listerine which had only just sprung into existence a moment before-- Aziraphale should move the stacks of books from the bed. Been a while since he’s had company in need…

 

    Crowley just snorts at him.

 

    “Oh, hush, you.”

 

    “I like him. Your project.”

 

    “He’s not a project.” Aziraphale tuts, although it’s a bit knee-jerk-- it might be more apt to say he isn’t _only_ a project. “And you only like him because he flatters you. And enables your mischief. And you’re not to put him in any trouble!”

 

    “I wouldn’t. I won’t.” He smiles, and stretches a leg out, nudging at Aziraphale’s leg in passing. “Angel, I won’t. He’s perfectly safe with me.”

 

    Aziraphale nods, and goes to make the bed up. Miles, who had been all energy before, totters out of the bath seeming to be on the verge of collapse, and so Aziraphale gets an arm about him and ushers him to bed, and tucks him in.

 

    On a whim, he kisses his forehead, and feels a great warmth at the little sigh, the relaxation that takes the boy-- not angelically influenced in the least, just… there.

 

    “Poor little lost lamb.” He smooths Miles’ hair, and turns out the light. How long since someone had kissed his forehead at night, taken care of him? He’s still so much a child, really… it seems wrong for him to be out in the wide world, so small and soft and fragile-- wrong for the world to have made him so afraid of his own future, so afraid of never having one. So sure he might never grow old that it’s made him older than his years. Trying so hard to be brave, reckless little creature, trying so hard to be cheery.

 

    “I want you to dream of a lovely future, my dear.” Aziraphale whispers. “And all the things you most wish it should bring. And when you wake, I want you to know that they are all within your grasp.”


End file.
